1. Field
One or more embodiments described herein relate to a liquid crystal display.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display is one of the most widely used flat panel displays. This type of display has a high contrast ratio and a wide reference viewing angle. Such an angle may be, for example, a viewing angle in which contrast ratio is 1:10 or an inter-gray luminance inversion critical angle.
Structurally, a liquid crystal display includes a liquid crystal layer between two substrates having field-generating electrodes, e.g., a pixel electrode and a common electrode. The amount of light transmitted through the liquid crystal layer is controlled based on alignment of liquid crystal molecules in the liquid crystal layer. The alignment is controlled based on voltages applied to the field-generating electrodes.
A liquid crystal display may operate in a variety of modes. In a vertically aligned mode, long axes of the liquid crystal molecules are perpendicular to upper and lower display panels when an electric field is not applied.
In an attempt to increase side visibility in the vertically aligned mode, one approach involves dividing each pixel into two subpixels. In this case, the transmittances of light from these subpixels may be different by applying different voltages to the subpixels. However, this approach may increase the luminance from the side view compared with the front view in a low gray scale range. Thus, it may be difficult to accurately express gray scale values in a low gray scale range with this approach. Also, the entire luminance of the display may be reduced compared with the applied pixel voltage, which, in turn, may adversely affect driving efficiency.
Further, aperture ratio may be reduced using two signal wires to input signals having opposite polarities, with respect to the common voltage applied to respective pixel areas. When the two signal wires overlap the pixel electrode, the pixel voltage may change, producing a further adverse effect on display performance.